It shows how likely you are to end up in any given income quintile, based on the income quintile your parents were in. In other words, how much mobility do Americans really have? Are they stuck in the income class they were born to?

The answer depends largely on whether you went to college.

As the report notes:

Without a degree, children born to parents in the bottom income quintile have a 45 percent chance of remaining there as adults. With a degree, they have less than a 20 percent chance of staying in the bottom quintile of the income distribution.

Higher education appears important for those born into relative wealth, too.

Look at the fifth (and highest) parents’ income quintile. The children of this group who didn’t go to college are just barely more likely to stay at the top than they are to end up in each of the other income groups. That’s basically what you would expect if your economic fate were not influenced at all by your parents': that you’d have an equally likely chance of ending up anywhere in the income distribution when you grow up.

But of the children who were born to upper-income parents and who have college degrees, more than half held onto the top income status they inherited. You can argue about why that’s the case — surely networking at college matters as much as signaling, skills or anything else — but clearly, there is a strong correlation here, too.

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Economics doesn't have to be complicated. It is the study of our lives — our jobs, our homes, our families and the little decisions we face every day. Here at Economix, journalists and economists analyze the news and use economics as a framework for thinking about the world. We welcome feedback, at economix@nytimes.com.